Ian Grossman got his real estate license about 10 years ago, after his first career as a fifth-grade teacher.
Grossman was quick to incorporate social media into his business, starting off by posting photos of listings on Instagram and eventually evolving to creating stories. He also launched a YouTube channel for longer-form, higher-resolution property tours.
By the late 20-teens, he had nabbed his first client from YouTube.
“When it happened, I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is amazing,'” Grossman told Inman.
The win inspired Grossman, and he leaned into social media even more. Then, as his Austin, Texas, market went into a boom fueled by the pandemic, his team’s social media following grew even more, and their biggest driver of business became YouTube.
But nothing lasts forever. Austin’s pandemic boom saw a reversal, and more than half of the leads that Grossman was getting from YouTube dried up.
It was time for him to pivot to keep up with the market shift. Here’s how he and his team, the Fenton Grossman Group at Douglas Elliman, responded.
Catching market highs
@realestate_atx Homeowner Tip: Every few months, spray this Garage Blaster or a similar lubricant on your garage springs to keep them functioning properly and extend the life of the part as well. You can also spray the wheels and any other part of the door that’s squeaking or looks like it’s in need of some TLC #homebuying #homeownertips ♬ original sound – Ian Grossman – Austin Realtor
That first client that Grossman attracted through YouTube really drove him to continue leaning into his social media channels.
“Someone randomly reached out and they were like, ‘Hey, we watch your YouTube channel and we’re moving to Austin, and we need a Realtor,'” Grossman recalled. “And I was like, ‘Holy moly. This is a real thing.’ And then I just doubled down and started posting.”
As Austin’s market was on the rise from about 2020 to 2023, Grossman’s YouTube and Instagram follower counts took off. He ultimately realized that the quality of his leads from YouTube was much higher than those from Instagram, but felt like Instagram was still a helpful platform for staying top-of-mind and showing his expertise in the market.
During those years, Grossman said, more than half of the Fenton Grossman Group’s business came from YouTube.
The success led to him being featured in local news spots, and he was highlighted for the ways in which he tried to make light of the then-frenzied Austin market.
Grossman also started trying out a new type of post on Instagram where he shared something that the average person might not know about being a homeowner. In one of those posts, he explains that every few months, a homeowner is supposed to lubricate the springs in their garage door, so that they’re more durable and less susceptible to snapping — a lesson he learned the hard way after one of those springs broke on his own garage.
“It went crazy viral,” Grossman said. “It got like over six million views on it. And suddenly, I was like, ‘Oh, well, people like those ideas.’ So I started doing more and more of those.”
Today, that same video from 2023 has 7.4 million views on TikTok.
Within a year, Grossman said his follower count on Instagram went from around 20,000 to 40,000. Life was good — but then the Austin market began to shift.
Shifting with the market downturn
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Home prices spiked as people flocked to Austin through about 2022-2023, but soon the market was poised for a correction and prices eventually started falling after demand peaked.
Everything slowed down for Grossman, including his once lucrative YouTube leads.
“With the Austin market changing drastically, we saw a big slowdown there,” Grossman said. “Now [YouTube leads are] a smaller percent of our business — probably about 20 percent.”
It was time for Grossman to pivot and adjust to the new lay of the land. So, he decided to refocus his content. Instead of producing a lot of social videos that were appealing to all types of homeowners, like his homeowner tips videos, he zeroed in on local content.
“I’m giving these [tips], whether you live in Texas or New York, Europe, a lot of these tips can be relevant to you,” Grossman said. “So I was like, it’s not really helping my business here.”
Today, Grossman’s social accounts are stacked with content that starts with hooks like, “Neighborhoods you didn’t know exist in Austin, Texas,” or “Things you didn’t know exist in Austin, Texas,” which allows locals — or people who soon hope to be locals in Austin — some hidden insight into the place where they live.
But that drop off in Grossman’s social media leads also spurred him to refocus on his team’s database, which had always been a strong source of business before the social media leads started to explode.
In 2024, the team started working with a coach and developed a marketing calendar to ensure that it consistently keeps in touch with its database.
“It breaks down each month what’s going out, and it’s a combination of emails and handwritten cards and phone calls, and all the things that agents should be doing that most don’t — that, quite frankly, we weren’t doing consistently before that.
“Doubling down on our sphere and database has been the best way to protect us from leads decreasing on YouTube and other social media,” he added.
The team has likewise, through their coach’s recommendation, been trying to strengthen its alliances with other businesses that might bring leads in, including financial planners, real estate attorneys and other professions adjacent to the industry.
Grossman also realized that, although he had been getting more high-quality leads from YouTube than from his other social media platforms, his YouTube channel was a bit of a mess. So he recently decided to shut the old account down and relaunch a new, more focused channel.
“It was painful,” Grossman admitted. “It was like, man, I’ve worked for so many years to build this up, but when I first started my channel, I was posting the local business spotlights and stuff about real estate. But then I would jump to something like, ‘Oh this article came out about Tesla coming to Austin, I’m going to talk about it.’ And, I wasn’t posting every week … For so many reasons, I felt like it was kind of stale and I was like, alright, I just need to rip the Band-Aid off and start from scratch.”
Now he’s focused on keeping a schedule, posting at least once a week on YouTube, and maintaining a clear, consistent message.
Being more intentional about the content he himself consumes has also helped, Grossman said, and he advised other agents to do the same.
“We can easily get caught up aimlessly scrolling,” Grossman said. “But one tip I would give agents is to be a little bit more intentional with when they are scrolling and use it more as research.”
Ian Grossman takeaways
- Start posts with a gripping hook that will pique the viewer’s interest.
- Choose about three different topics to create videos about, fine-tune them and consistently post on each of those topics at least once per week.
- Evaluate your different posts, and if they performed well, figure out what worked. If they don’t do well, move on to the next idea.
- Put captions on videos and use trending music.
- Keep the video moving by cutting out spaces in dialogue.
- When posting on YouTube, use high-quality footage because most people view YouTube videos on their TV.
- Don’t just copycat what other agents are doing on social media — figure out what your own goal is for posting on social and stay true to yourself.
- If you run out of ideas, try asking ChatGPT for content ideas.
- Don’t rely on social media alone — continue to work your sphere and find ways to make personal connections with clients.
